Why is packing so tricky? I am off to ‘mystery’ city tomorrow, for a whole week this time. This is causing me and my one little suitcase some distress. You see, it is either the one little suitcase, or it is the giant whopper that my mum once dragged back from the market. If you pack the giant whopper, then you are off for good. It is so big that it even looks roomy if you are packing for a three week stay in the Bahamas (speaking hypothetically, since I have never been on a three week holiday, or to the Bahamas. What a deprived life I lead.).
And so I am trying to cram everything in, with a stand-by shoulder bag in case of emergencies. I just know my smart trousers will crease and my shirts will rumple. Why did I bother spending the best part of today struggling with the iron? I hate ironing, and ironing hates me. My best look is ‘creased’ anyway.
So what have I been up to since we last sat down to chat? I’ve got a job! Yes, a real one – permanent, pays wages. Although the current freelance job is going well, the press / publishing industry is still generally up the swanny… all my email alerts keep announcing people taking ‘voluntary redundancy’, and how ‘happy’ they are about it. Hm… It feels prudent to get permanent work with everything so uncertain. And it should be good… at least, it sounds like it has potential. And wages! Yes – let me hug you, nice wages. It will be nice to go away to Italy and know I have a job to come back to, rather than back to sitting in my room wondering if I can make a new dress out of dusters.
Freelance job has been quite tough actually. This is probably more to do with my sleepy Internet connection, as every time I upload content it conks out and then claims it has no signal, the lying little sod. I think it has been trying to teach me patience, and it is working – at least, I haven’t thrown it out of the window just yet (only once across the room, honest). I now have a date for proper broadband to come and flood my house with goodness. At the moment this date is far off in April, but at least it is en route! Oh the things I can do… upload pictures! Play with settings! Reply to other blogs! Download emails! Whoop!
Novel has had a slight hiatus while work has been so frenetic. The first 3 chapters are now ready for my good friend T to see, and I am going to print them out tonight to send to her tomorrow morning. I'm not sure where I will find a post office though... the only one I can think of is 40 minutes the wrong direction, and not sure the one little suitcase will stand being dragged all that way. It has wheels, but not that you'd know it - it much prefers twisting onto its side and being dragged lamely along making me look bad. Still, there must be one somewhere. Surely? I've been having good thoughts again with the novel, which is a positive step. Sometimes I need a bit of a break from it, and to step away for a while to get all fired up with it again. It's hard living with the same story for so long, especially when there is no guarantee anything will happen with it. In the end, it's a story I want just for me, to please me.. but I am so picky. Even for a readership of just me, it has to be perfect.
And lastly – clues on mystery city. So far we have established it has trams. It is also quite fond of Matchstalk Men. And on that tantalising clue, I shall carry on packing…!
Showing posts with label three mobile broadband. Show all posts
Showing posts with label three mobile broadband. Show all posts
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Monday, 16 March 2009
I Don’t Like Monday’s
I think I need to look up my horoscope for today and find out why it all went so horribly wrong. There must be some retrograde Mercury thing happening to certain unlucky Virgoans as my communication is up the spout – be it verbal or virtual. Of course, this would be the day of Tight Deadline, Must Be Finished Today On Pain of Death. Of course it is.
Wrong Things
Up at six to beat Three Mobile Broadband’s usual paddy from 10am onwards The computer system I am uploading to dies from 9 – 11am. This is my prime Internet time, and now it is wasted. Three Mobile Broadband starts crashing every half hour from midday. Cannot upload any of my work Decide to pack up and use free wifi at British Library. This is the nearest reliable source of wifi that has plug sockets available, as my lap top needs plug power Train fare today is £6.50, yesterday it was £4.50. I query why when it is the same journey. Ticket man shrugs and shrugs, and then finally says it is because I am not travelling direct today (as the trains only run direct on weekends) and am using the tube. I was practically purple with rage at this point. My ‘thank you’ was said through gritted teeth. Buy a bottle of fizzy drink that fizzes all over my hand and down my canvas carrier bag Get to British Library and there is not a spare plug anywhere in the building. Share someone’s 4 plug adapter for 10 minutes before I get told off by jobsworth security man as I have moved my table 2 inches to the left and am running a cable across the floor. I get the cable; I don’t get the tiny table movement. Damn the man. Work on battery power. Cannot access job website, password’s not working Manage one section when get new password from tech bloke, and then battery on lap top dies Cruise British Library desperate for a plug socket, trailing power cable Find one, but it means sitting on cold marble floor like a looney Internet falls over half hour later I give up, and decide to go back home Get home and Internet works, for an hour only Make boiled eggs in anger for tea Internet then crashes at 20 minute intervals until 8.30pm
Right Things
Internet occasionally worked Kind man at British Library let me share his 4 plug adapter Found a plug socket of my very own Deadline extended for me until midnight My boiled eggs were done to perfection My mum knows not to talk to me when I am in a snit I read my ‘Bedknob and Broomstick’ book on the tube I finally finished my work by 10pm, so I can crash out in bed
Wrong Things
Right Things
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Blow me Internet down, sport
Whenever the wind blows, my Internet falls over. So I apologise for not updating for over a whole week – it has been slightly gusty outside the window. Slightly gusty is Three Mobile Broadband code for ‘quick, stop working’. So while it stops, I continue – working from home this week, so no mystery city visits. The best thing about working from home is that you are in your little world, cat on lap, own coffee, and own sneaky biscuit. The worst thing about working from home is that you don’t leave your little world, need extra long arms to work around the cat on your lap, no Starbucks, and the biscuits are usually the ones me and mum rejected now forlorn and soft at the bottom of the barrel.
The cat on my lap is called Ginger, as…um… well, I think you can guess. He likes to keep me alert and active while home-working by digging his claws into my leg at regular intervals. This would be fine if it was my light-pawed Tabby-girl, but Ginger’s second name is Mr Big Paws. Ouch is all I say about that, and I know I could push him off but he purrs away happily and so I leave him slowly turning my thigh into a pin cushion.
Book stuff – well, I haven’t done much over the last week or so. My lovely author friend T got in touch, and I am sending her the first three chapters to look through – it will be so great to get her opinion! So I am hopeful to do that at some stage this week, but I did a very light edit on the beginning pages so I have to read that through to see if it all still makes sense. Sometimes I dive in the middle of chapters and add a word, only to realise that I repeat the same word a paragraph backwards. It’s like my brain knows that word should be there, and forgets to read (yes my brain forgets to read, it’s all its fault) what I had written previously. In the real edit I am still swooshing away at chapters 4 – 7. There is, as ever, a long way to go.
And now I am determined to go for a walk before starting my day, and get a feel for life outside the window. I am going to stride into the brave new world and get a posh coffee.
The cat on my lap is called Ginger, as…um… well, I think you can guess. He likes to keep me alert and active while home-working by digging his claws into my leg at regular intervals. This would be fine if it was my light-pawed Tabby-girl, but Ginger’s second name is Mr Big Paws. Ouch is all I say about that, and I know I could push him off but he purrs away happily and so I leave him slowly turning my thigh into a pin cushion.
Book stuff – well, I haven’t done much over the last week or so. My lovely author friend T got in touch, and I am sending her the first three chapters to look through – it will be so great to get her opinion! So I am hopeful to do that at some stage this week, but I did a very light edit on the beginning pages so I have to read that through to see if it all still makes sense. Sometimes I dive in the middle of chapters and add a word, only to realise that I repeat the same word a paragraph backwards. It’s like my brain knows that word should be there, and forgets to read (yes my brain forgets to read, it’s all its fault) what I had written previously. In the real edit I am still swooshing away at chapters 4 – 7. There is, as ever, a long way to go.
And now I am determined to go for a walk before starting my day, and get a feel for life outside the window. I am going to stride into the brave new world and get a posh coffee.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
In which I inadvertently become Vegan
It was lunchtime in Soho on a grey weekend, and a sumptuous shimmering buffet caught the eye of myself and good friend I. We had just emerged from spending more time in a bead shop than is ever wise, and this buffet truly looked like the buffet of dreams. We peered through the window, which was cunningly frosted so passers by could only see the food, not the interior.
“Look at those prawns!” I said.
“Ooo – dumplings!” Said I.
(You’ll have to guess which of us said what).
It was a fiver to eat all that we wanted, a bargain for such wonderful looking food. So in we went, not pausing at all until we were seated and looking at a drinks menu. A rather large list of herbal tea gazed back at us, and we quickly chose our poison, feeling nice and healthy. Then we raced to the food, plates in hand.
I happily started with the prawn salad. “Are they prawns?” My friend asked. “They look sort of funny.”
“Of course they are prawns!” I said, ladling on noodles. “Are you having some of that beef?”
Finally, with an impressive plateful of food before us, we headed back to our table. I took a happy bite of prawn. And then a more thoughtful second bite.
“What’s it like?” asked I, taking a bite of steak.
“Um…not quite prawn,” I replied, considering. “More like a shaped crab stick.” I put it to one side, not quite sure if it was perhaps off. “How’s the steak?”
I was chewing thoughtfully. “Not quite steak. What’s that you’ve got there – chicken?”
“Yup,” I said confidently. “Has to be.” I took a mouthful. “Or perhaps some sort of dumpling masquerading as chicken.”
“Hm.” I investigated the contents of her dumpling. She lowered her voice dramatically. “I think we are in a vegetarian restaurant. None of this meat tastes right.”
I prodded my ‘lamb’ thoughtfully. “You’re right. It all tastes like some sort of reconstructed sausage.” I think back to the disastrous night years ago when I was hung-over yet all there was in the shared flat was someone else’s tin of fake sausages. Never, ever again. I put down my chop sticks.
“No wonder the waiter said ‘vegetables’ in that tone of voice when I asked what was in the dumplings,” I mused.
We both decided there was something a bit wrong with eating things that were pretending to be meat, and that we’d much rather embrace vegetarianism and eat nice vegetables. But, surprisingly, this was the one thing this place didn’t have. Nearly every plate, bar the salad, had fake meat lurking in it, painted to look like whatever bit of animal it was representing. Why? Why not just have nice vegetable dishes?
We decided we couldn’t go wrong with noodles (except we could, it had been cooked in some sort of nut oil and tasted reminiscent of the smell you get when you encounter goats). We also noticed that every dish was labelled ‘veg-lamb’ or ‘veg-chicken’.
Oh it was all coming clear now, as we threaded our way back to our seat. It was then we noticed the clientele for the first time, since previous to this we had been blind-sided with hunger. Nearly every table had a solitary white skinny cycle courier with dreaded hair, chowing down as much fake beef as he could fit on his plate. We weren’t just in a veggie restaurant. We had gone vegan.
The clue, possibly was in the restaurant name as we poured out of the door, laughing like drains. Let’s just say it was something like ‘We Love Veggie Vegans!’ If only we had looked up…
This has probably put my budding vegetarianism back by about five years. It just tasted awful – a bit like having a giant swig of soya milk thinking it will taste the same as milk because it is white, or biting into marmite thinking it is brown so should taste like nutella chocolate. It’s being taken unawares that puts me off.
And Three’s days as my broadband provider are numbered. Not impressed!
“Look at those prawns!” I said.
“Ooo – dumplings!” Said I.
(You’ll have to guess which of us said what).
It was a fiver to eat all that we wanted, a bargain for such wonderful looking food. So in we went, not pausing at all until we were seated and looking at a drinks menu. A rather large list of herbal tea gazed back at us, and we quickly chose our poison, feeling nice and healthy. Then we raced to the food, plates in hand.
I happily started with the prawn salad. “Are they prawns?” My friend asked. “They look sort of funny.”
“Of course they are prawns!” I said, ladling on noodles. “Are you having some of that beef?”
Finally, with an impressive plateful of food before us, we headed back to our table. I took a happy bite of prawn. And then a more thoughtful second bite.
“What’s it like?” asked I, taking a bite of steak.
“Um…not quite prawn,” I replied, considering. “More like a shaped crab stick.” I put it to one side, not quite sure if it was perhaps off. “How’s the steak?”
I was chewing thoughtfully. “Not quite steak. What’s that you’ve got there – chicken?”
“Yup,” I said confidently. “Has to be.” I took a mouthful. “Or perhaps some sort of dumpling masquerading as chicken.”
“Hm.” I investigated the contents of her dumpling. She lowered her voice dramatically. “I think we are in a vegetarian restaurant. None of this meat tastes right.”
I prodded my ‘lamb’ thoughtfully. “You’re right. It all tastes like some sort of reconstructed sausage.” I think back to the disastrous night years ago when I was hung-over yet all there was in the shared flat was someone else’s tin of fake sausages. Never, ever again. I put down my chop sticks.
“No wonder the waiter said ‘vegetables’ in that tone of voice when I asked what was in the dumplings,” I mused.
We both decided there was something a bit wrong with eating things that were pretending to be meat, and that we’d much rather embrace vegetarianism and eat nice vegetables. But, surprisingly, this was the one thing this place didn’t have. Nearly every plate, bar the salad, had fake meat lurking in it, painted to look like whatever bit of animal it was representing. Why? Why not just have nice vegetable dishes?
We decided we couldn’t go wrong with noodles (except we could, it had been cooked in some sort of nut oil and tasted reminiscent of the smell you get when you encounter goats). We also noticed that every dish was labelled ‘veg-lamb’ or ‘veg-chicken’.
Oh it was all coming clear now, as we threaded our way back to our seat. It was then we noticed the clientele for the first time, since previous to this we had been blind-sided with hunger. Nearly every table had a solitary white skinny cycle courier with dreaded hair, chowing down as much fake beef as he could fit on his plate. We weren’t just in a veggie restaurant. We had gone vegan.
The clue, possibly was in the restaurant name as we poured out of the door, laughing like drains. Let’s just say it was something like ‘We Love Veggie Vegans!’ If only we had looked up…
This has probably put my budding vegetarianism back by about five years. It just tasted awful – a bit like having a giant swig of soya milk thinking it will taste the same as milk because it is white, or biting into marmite thinking it is brown so should taste like nutella chocolate. It’s being taken unawares that puts me off.
And Three’s days as my broadband provider are numbered. Not impressed!
Monday, 9 February 2009
Three Mobile Broadband
I noticed last Friday that my outlook email appeared to be going into a spasm. It kept telling me that it couldn’t send or reply to anything as my settings had changed. I wouldn’t mind if I had spent the previous ten minutes attacking my settings with a blunt spanner, but since I hadn’t, then just exactly what was wrong?
I still can access the Internet, so I peered around Three’s website for some help. They do live web chat help for mobile problems, but anyone with broadband problems can bog off, apparently. Well, it doesn’t say that of course, but for broadband you have to fill in a form and hope that it doesn’t ping off into a vortex. I waited ten minutes for a response, which is very patient for me, if a tad unrealistic on my behalf, and then I called them.
I got through to a very helpful young man who may or may not have been sitting in a call centre across the world. He wanted to help me. He asked lots of questions, and then asked me to check my SMTP. He wanted me to type in exactly the same SMTP as I already have – this stumped him. He said he had to elevate my problem (I picture some cranky lift, filled with cranky folk). He said they would call me back.
They called me as I was in a silent art gallery on Saturday. Luckily my mobile is always on vibrate just in case these embarrassing moments crop up unannounced, and so I could answer and hiss that this was a bit inconvenient without annoying everyone else. I took it outside and then repeated everything that I had already said to bloke number one. Bloke number two said a lot of customers were reporting this strange phenomenon that I was going through. He said they would get back to me.
And since then nothing. Surely the answer is obvious, somewhere someone has spilt a cup of coffee on an important server, and the result is sending everyone’s emails into outer space. I am probably waiting on a cleaner, working for the equivalent of fifty pence, in a tiny country with no heating, to come along and wipe an oily rag across the server that holds my email connection.
I really need to be able to send emails. I need to apply for jobs! I need to pitch for jobs! Don’t Three know its hard enough getting a signal with their dongle of doom, let alone trying to conduct a life through its wavering blue light? I get the feeling I will have to call them again tomorrow, explain again my problem, and then be told again that they are working on it and will call me back. It was my fault for hissing on Saturday, I knew at the time that was a bad move, like complaining about food in restaurants, especially when you are still going to eat there. I’ll call it the dongle of delight if only my email works tomorrow!
I still can access the Internet, so I peered around Three’s website for some help. They do live web chat help for mobile problems, but anyone with broadband problems can bog off, apparently. Well, it doesn’t say that of course, but for broadband you have to fill in a form and hope that it doesn’t ping off into a vortex. I waited ten minutes for a response, which is very patient for me, if a tad unrealistic on my behalf, and then I called them.
I got through to a very helpful young man who may or may not have been sitting in a call centre across the world. He wanted to help me. He asked lots of questions, and then asked me to check my SMTP. He wanted me to type in exactly the same SMTP as I already have – this stumped him. He said he had to elevate my problem (I picture some cranky lift, filled with cranky folk). He said they would call me back.
They called me as I was in a silent art gallery on Saturday. Luckily my mobile is always on vibrate just in case these embarrassing moments crop up unannounced, and so I could answer and hiss that this was a bit inconvenient without annoying everyone else. I took it outside and then repeated everything that I had already said to bloke number one. Bloke number two said a lot of customers were reporting this strange phenomenon that I was going through. He said they would get back to me.
And since then nothing. Surely the answer is obvious, somewhere someone has spilt a cup of coffee on an important server, and the result is sending everyone’s emails into outer space. I am probably waiting on a cleaner, working for the equivalent of fifty pence, in a tiny country with no heating, to come along and wipe an oily rag across the server that holds my email connection.
I really need to be able to send emails. I need to apply for jobs! I need to pitch for jobs! Don’t Three know its hard enough getting a signal with their dongle of doom, let alone trying to conduct a life through its wavering blue light? I get the feeling I will have to call them again tomorrow, explain again my problem, and then be told again that they are working on it and will call me back. It was my fault for hissing on Saturday, I knew at the time that was a bad move, like complaining about food in restaurants, especially when you are still going to eat there. I’ll call it the dongle of delight if only my email works tomorrow!
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